Apple to Stop Supporting SOPA; Also Microsoft, Intel, Adobe

Apple had originally sided with SOPA in the hopes to stop software piracy.

Apple, being a software giant like Adobe, Intel, Microsoft, and Sony, had originally thought that the moral idea behind SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) sounded like a good idea. Now, all four of those companies are backing away from it. Why? Because they took a closer look at the bill and saw what it really gave the government the power to do. If you're unfamiliar with SOPA, you can read my rendition of it here. This rendition is completely from my own mind with some quotes from other sources. It is opinionated, but it also holds some realistic facts. Feel free to read it if you are interested, leave comments if you like.

As we reported last week, Apple supposedly sided with SOPA by proxy. Proxy meaning that they secretly supported it. Now, it seems, Apple is changing their mind because the bill brings some rather questionable powers to the government.

At first, the bill sounded good. Stopping all piracy, blocking questionable piracy sites, and helping the companies keep making money off of their products. In essence, any software company could agree with that. Most of them did (about a month ago). As the bill was introduced, more was unveiled about it. Albeit the bill would bring reduced numbers of piracy, it would also bring about an unstable internet in which the government or law enforcement could seize and shut down any Web Site that held questionable content or broke the law. This is where they over-stepped the line. Many companies already disagreed with the bill because of this, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo, and Zynga to name a few. It makes sense, because all of these companies have something to do with media, something that is pirated very frequently. The only one that you might disagree with me on that with is Mozilla, but think about it, you need a Web Browser to see Web Sites, so in essence, the government could have blocked them to stop piracy too.

Apple doesn't like the idea of the government having the ability to control the internet. Apple is a large seller of music and music is media. Apple also sells movies on iTunes as well as music. Movies are also media. Apple also has a market for applications, which are also media. Social media is anything that we can use to connect with each other over the internet to communicate, to share, to converse, and to laugh. It's a very broad term that includes anything you can do on a computer because everything you download is nothing but data. Data is social and media is data, it's how we communicate.

Christian Dawson, COO of ServInt, had this to say about SOPA:

Originally Posted by Christian Dawson

... if you walked into Best Buy and saw something on the shelf you thought was pirated merchandise, under a law like the DMCA you would work with the store to get that product off the shelf. Under a law like PIPA or SOPA, you would force the landlord to close Best Buy. Innovation cannot thrive in such an environment. Businesses wonít tolerate continuing to host on U.S.-based servers with the uncertainty that this model creates. Enacting such laws to combat copyright infringement would be like using a flamethrower to find a needle in a haystack.

So now that the biggest supporters of SOPA have pulled themselves away from the dubbed, "Anti-piracy" bill, do you think it will still get passed? Share in the comments below!